Always
by ThoseWhoWander98
Summary: It was a surprisingly warm, sunny day when Severus Snape learned of Voldemort's downfall...


ALWAYS

It was a surprisingly sunny, warm day for November when Severus Snape learned of Voldemort's downfall. The clouds were puffy and whitish gray, and they drifted lazily across the bright azure blue sky. Severus was striding across the grounds of Hogwarts, ready to go and endure what promised to be an unpleasant visit to Hagrid's hut to retrieve pumpkin leaves that he'd been promised for his supply cupboard. Snape tried to avoid such visits but there were just some plants that couldn't flourish in an underground office or in the hot staff room.

Snape rapped thrice on Hagrid's thick, crudely fashioned wooden door and waited impatiently for an answer. He wanted to get out of there and back to Dumbledore's office as quickly as possible.

For some minutes no one answered the door. Severus was just considering letting himself in (he was certainly in no mood to wait, nor to return another day; Snape had much more preoccupying things on his mind than pumpkin leaves) when he was thoroughly alarmed by Hagrid flinging open the door and crushing him in a large hug.

Snape instinctively leaned away from Hagrid until the large man let go. When Hagrid pulled away, Snape saw that he was beaming, yet tears poured from his kind black eyes. Snape frowned.

"Professor!" Hagrid cried. "Did yeh hear? You-Know-Who-GONE!"He jumped rather overenthusiastically, shaking the ground. Snape pressed his lips together. He realized that Hagrid's trusting nature meant that he had no qualms about sharing this particular piece of information with Snape, who, it was common knowledge, had until quite recently been a Death Eater. Snape figured that this was probably why no one had cared to inform him of this particular fact until now.

"Is that so? How—where?" Snape paused to take a deep breath. He was nearly scared to ask this last question, but he had, throughout his life, learned not to display emotion when he didn't want to. "Who?"

"Come on in, Professor. It's a bit of a long story, eh!" And so, against all his better judgement, Severus Snape walked into the house of Rubeus Hagrid.

The pair of men sat at Hagrid's crudely fashioned wood table, Hagrid offering Snape a mug of a strange, cloudy amber liquid and setting a plate of rock cakes on the table. Snape ignored both, sitting uncomfortably on the brutish, large chair as Hagrid began his story.

"Just las' night, it was. I dunno why You-Know-Who hadn' found 'em before, but anyways... lessee... it's jus' so hard to know where ter _start_. Well, las' night, You Know Who turned up in Godric's Hollow, where the Potters were livin'."

A very unpleasant feeling had started somewhere in the pit of Snape's stomach. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly and a shooting stab of fear pierced his heart.

"He had gone to kill the boy. Harry Potter—took him away from the ruins meself las' night, as a matter o' fact. Well, it was James who he firs'—"

Hagrid cut himself off and started sobbing. "I- I'm sorry, Professor. It's jus' so sad, Harry's parents were a couple o' the finest people you could find, and now—I can' help it!"

Snape's nerves, already stretched to breaking point, finally snapped under the stress of waiting for news of Lily Potter. He stood, leaned over the table, and gave Hagrid a look that would have made a braver man cower. "Tell me what happened to the Potters, oaf, TELL ME!" Something inside of Severus Snape broke. "I have been waiting too long, Hagrid. Tell me."

This last line was said so unimaginably quietly that Hagrid barely heard. He did, however, hear the stress and the pain in Snape's voice, and sensed that the information he was about to share was not something that he wanted to relay to Snape. So he replied, "I can' do it... it's jus' so sad, go to... to someone else and hear... I can' do it, Professor."

At those words, Severus Snape was out the door, racing across the grounds, into the school, up the stairs and around corners, round and round, up, down, left, right, onwards until he saw the all-too-familiar gargoyle. "Chocolate Frog!" he panted urgently, leaning against the wall to catch his breath.

Snape raced up the whirling stairs, too impatient to wait for them to move on their own. When he burst into Dumbledore's office, he was surprised by the calm.

"Severus. I'd have expected you'd be here sooner."

"Tell me what happened last night, Professor. TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED TO HER... please."

"Lily Potter died protecting her son."

Snape felt colder than he had ever felt before, colder than when he'd lost Lily's friendship, colder than when she'd married Potter, colder than when he'd heard of their son, colder even than he'd felt after learned that they were being hunted. Two thoughts ran through his mind. The first: _She died protecting HIS child_, an immature thought, a jealous thought, the thought of a poor boy, and the second, much more painful, horrible, despairing thought: _My fault._

_ My fault._

_ I relayed the prophecy. My fault._

_ Gone. My fault. _The thoughts were jerk, disjointed, punctuated with grief and pain and denial.

There was a split second of agonizing pain that seemed to possess Snape's entire being. His knees gave way and he sank to the floor in despair.

"No."

Never had Albus Dumbledore heard a word that had so much pain, so much devotion and love and hurt.

"Her son survives. Protect him, he has her eyes, don't let her die in vain. If you really loved Lily Potter—"

"I will ALWAYS love her."

"Then protect the boy! It's what she would have wanted."

"No one can know."

"I shall never reveal the best in you, Severus. I do sometimes wonder why the hat placed you where it did."

Severus Snape did not hear the words, as his soul was taken over by a cold, numb nothingness.


End file.
